Menahem Wecker reviews a new book called Jews & Sex:
Abrams opens his own study of the ways people have responded to Jewish involvement in pornography by critiquing Luke Ford, “a self-styled adult industry gossip-monger.” Abrams argues that Ford, who has since given up his porn sites for a blog with the subheading “Your Moral Leader: Jews, Judaism, Journalism,” overestimates Jewish involvement in the industry. Not only do Ford and others claim that Jews in the porn industry represent the larger Jewish population, Abrams suggests, but anti-Semites also turn to pornography to show how degenerate all Jews are. Abrams stresses that the performers in question “tend to be secular Jews, having received varying degrees of Jewish education but, by and large, define their Jewish identity in cultural rather than religious terms.”
Abrams’ chapter becomes a warning not to romanticize the story of Jews and sex. Though it is an area in which more scholarship is needed, there is no excuse for sloppiness and assumptions that overestimate Jewish involvement in all things sexual. And asked how he responds to people who say pornography is disgusting and the entire enterprise should be ignored, Abrams said, “It’s there. It’s as much a part of our culture as allegedly non-dirty industries, so it should not be ignored simply because some people can’t stomach it.”
